The indestructible Rolling Stones guitarist on the worst jail cell he's ever been in, the proper use of a knife and what he really did with his dad's ashes.
In 1967 in court after the drug bust in which he was discovered by
British police in the company of a girl clad only in a fur rug, Keith
Richards famously told the prosecution, "We are not old men, and we’re
not worried about petty morals." There were cheers from the gallery; he
was sent to Wormwood Scrubs prison for his trouble.
Forty years later, sitting in a suite at New
York’s Carlyle Hotel, the hardest-living man in show business suggests
that time may have finally caught up with him. "I’m a really straight
old man now," he growls-though the pirate’s leer from beneath his
bandanna hints at a certain lack of
sincerity.
Despite recently turning 64, and in 2006
undergoing brain surgery after falling from a tree in Fiji, he’s still
enthusiastically swirling the ice in a cocktail he’s dubbed Nuclear
Waste—a mix of vodka and Sunkist orange soda he started drinking
because his stomach couldn’t take the Rebel Yell anymore—and working
his way slowly through a pack of full-strength Marlboros. He remains
bracingly frank about his romantic appeal ("the most beautiful women in
the world are attracted to ugliness-as long as you’ve got a good
tongue.
Heh heh") and keen to endorse his favorite
firearms ("a .38 Smith & Wesson Airweight revolver—that’s the
fucking gun. No safety on it"). And his stage presence remains
undiminished: In the new Martin Scorsese–directed Rolling Stones
concert film,
Shine a Light, the solo turn Richards
takes on his ballad "You Got the Silver" is the highlight of the movie:
"Bless yer ’eart, pal," he says when apprised of this by
Blender. "I turned it into a piece of
theater."
As for the drugs, he insists he’s always
been more careful than you might think. "I never took anything without
researching what it was," he says. Though he does add one thing: "I’ve
got to admit—sometimes, I probably overdid it."
If Johnny Depp hadn’t told you, would you have known that Captain Jack Sparrow was based on you?
Paladin33, Euclid, OH